This course surveys the development
of the West from 1600 to the present. Essentially
it is a story about the rise of Western European states from a position
of relative weakness in the seventeenth century to global preeminence by
1914. The years from 1914 to 1945 witnessed the political and moral
collapse of Europe. Since 1945, Europe has recovered much of her
vitality. The fall of communism, the re-unification of Germany, and
the effort towards European union seem to point towards a new European
future.